Dinosaurs

Darwin would have called us armchair conservationists, but this is even worse. While he was an armchair theorist (compared to Wallace), we may begin to spend our time and money trying to correct past extinctions. Tinkering is unlikely to be an answer to the continuing loss of biodiversity from every single habitat on land and water. Conservation of what we have is going to be much more difficult than some fairly basic genetic engineering.

We have covered the methane from cows and biodegradable materials, but the methane from our past could even have had an effect on the demise of the dinosaurs. Could it finally create an even greater global warming effect?

Why should we mourn an African elephant? Maybe because they mourn their own dead. Or better, because the environments of Africa today contains a mere 10,000, reducing annually by a massive number. The Chinese have to stop their trade in many countries and we have to fight for our elephants very hard. Otherwise, all 3 species will be extinct, like the mammoths.

Could a tyrannosaur wade or swim after prey? While the two-legged dinosaurs were taller and better able to cross water than some four legged species, there is little evidence to assess how they dealt with hunting or migrating in water.

In Patagonia, which was part of southern Gondwanaland, a very early complete (almost) theropod dinosaur example has been found from the middle of the Jurassic period, 40 million years before any relative.

Fossils from a new bird-like dinosaur species have been discovered in Patagonia. At 70 million years old, 'Bonaparte' or Bonapartenykus ultimus has fascinated palaeontologists and closely resembles Patagonykus.

Yuka, a young mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), was found preserved in the permafrost of Siberia. Was this mammoth killed by lions or humans and why did the mammoth become extinct? Over 10,000 years later, scientists search for answers.

Japan and Russia are collaborating at last. It's all on behalf of a mammoth found a few months ago in Batagay in the Sakha Republic (in Siberia). The search for material is a result of the long-standing cooperation between Kinki University and the Mammoth Museum in the city of Yakutsk.

A new theory about climate change at the end of the Late Cretaceous Epoch. In a recent conversation, one of my friends - let's call him X - argued that we waste too much money in pointless scientific studies. I mean - he said - who cares what killed the dinosaurs? They have been dead for a long time, period.

Five brave researchers have completed a computer analysis of Tyrannosaurus rex, looking especially at the implications for locomotion, ontogeny and growth. Giant dinosaurs grew quickly as far as we know, and the process is ultimately fascinating to everyone. From a 10 kg hatch weight to the 6000 kg adult Tyrannosaurus rex in 20 years is a speedy growth of a kind rarely found outside theropod dinosaurs.

An expedition to some of Tibet's remotest and most inhospitable country has yielded a wonderful result in the shape of a previously unknown giant woolly rhino fossil. At 3.7 million years old, it's also the oldest woolly rhino ever found by some distance, predating the previous earliest find by some 1.1 million years.

The mass extinction 200 million years ago, that paved the way for the rise of the dinosaurs, could have been caused by a massive belch of methane, say scientists in a paper just published online on ScienceExpress. Plant remains show that the atmosphere was rapidly filled with carbon, which could have come from CO2-driven warming, releasing the methane stored in the cold sub-sea sediments.

Tiny holes in bones show creatures were not sluggish as often thought. New Research at Australia's Adelaide University suggests that contrary to some beliefs, dinosaurs were active and even fast-moving creatures, not cold-blooded and sluggish.

A pioneering paper in today's Science has been able to put a number to the temperature-chart of 150 million-year old dinosaurs - using enamel from their teeth. Two larger dinosaurs species have had their temperatures taken, showing a warm 96-100°F - but more work is needed with their smaller cousins to settle the warm-blooded vs cold-blooded debate.

The next mass extinction? Are humans the cause of the planet's sixth mass loss of species on a scale of the events that wiped out the dinosaurs? Scientists believe that we certainly will be if all creatures classified now as critically endangered are lost, but there is still time to avert the crisis.

An epic Montana fossil bed census suggests Tyrannosaurus rex was more of an opportunistic scavenger like a hyena, than an apex predator like a lion. This is the largest study of its kind in the world and the first complete picture of an ancient ecosystem dominated by dinosaurs.

A new species of dinosaur, Brontomerus, literally 'thunderthighs', has been found in a quarry in Utah, USA. Named for it's extremely large thigh muscles, the larger than elephant-sized beast may have used them to kick fight predators or rivals.

A new method of dating indicates that a New Mexico dinosaur was alive 700,000 years after the ''mass extinction'' of all the others. Is it possible that the previously accepted date is wrong? Researchers from the University of Alberta have cast shadow of doubt on this timescale after they examined a fossilised hadrosaur bone that was discovered in New Mexico.

Researchers from Ohio suggest that human activity that is allowing the introduction of invasive species into ecosystems tcould potentially lead to the Eath's sixth mass extinction. 65 million years ago dinosaurs dominated the Earth. Global temperatures were between six and 14 degrees Celsius warmer than at present and sea levels were over 300 metres higher. 40% of the present land mass was under the sea.

Engineer provides new insight into pterodactyl flight by building epoxy resin and carbon fibre wings. Giant pterosaurs  ancient reptiles that flew over the heads of dinosaurs  were at their best in gentle tropical breezes, soaring over hillsides and coastlines or floating over land and sea on thermally driven air currents, according to new research from the University of Bristol.

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